Reflections of a localist: Remarks from Sarabeth Berman for the DRK Foundation

This year, the American Journalism Project wrapped up its three-year investment from the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK), a pioneering venture philanthropy fund that supports early-stage social entrepreneurs working to create lasting change. As part of DRK’s model, a managing director joins the board of each grantee organization during the investment period; Michelle De La Isla, former mayor of Topeka, Kansas, and former DRK managing director, joined the American Journalism Project board in that capacity. To mark the close of this partnership, AJP CEO Sarabeth Berman shared her reflections with social entrepreneurs from across the world at DRK’s annual retreat on the power of local journalism, how our organization has evolved, and the lessons learned. Her remarks are below.

Good afternoon, everyone. I’m delighted to be here, and grateful to DRK for the chance to reflect with all of you and share a bit about why I, frankly, am so obsessed with our work at the American Journalism Project.

I was born in New Hampshire. My grandfather sold plumbing supplies. My mom had been a state legislator, and my dad was a doctor who, early in his career, built a community practice that cared for people from cradle to grave.

We moved outside of Boston when I was young, and when I picture our breakfast table growing up, I don’t see my parents’ faces — I see the backs of their newspapers.

At dinner, I heard stories from before I was born: how, on their very first date, they bonded over being inspired by John F. Kennedy’s call to service: “Ask not what your country can do for you…” Months after they were married, they heeded that call and joined the Peace Corps in its early years, heading to India.

So I grew up hearing stories of far-away places, while also watching my parents deeply engaged in what was happening right in our own community.

I remember once coming home from school with friends and asking to watch a movie. My mom said yes — but only if we stuffed campaign envelopes for her at the same time. We groaned… but it was her way of building our civic muscle.

When I graduated from college, perhaps thinking I was charting my own path — but in truth, being shaped by theirs — I too headed to the other side of the globe. I moved to China.

~~~

In China, I managed a Chinese dance company and saw what it meant to build something that could bring people together. That carried me into the early years of Teach For China, and later into work with Teach For All, a network of social entrepreneurs in more than 60 countries. It was work that stretched across borders, and I learned how to build, scale, and adapt successful nonprofits in vastly different contexts.

When I returned to the United States — to our nation’s capital, no less — I began to look around me and realize something: our global challenges, our national crises, will ultimately be solved at the local level.

I’ve since become an avowed localist. I’m not actually sure that’s a term, but if it’s not, it should be.

~~~

Those newspapers I remember my parents reading at the breakfast table — they have grown thin. In so many places, they’ve disappeared altogether.

Over the last two decades, local news has eroded. More than 3,300 newspapers have closed. And on average, we’re still losing two newspapers every week.

We’re flooded with headlines from social media and national outlets, yet we don’t know what’s happening in our backyards. What’s missing isn’t news from Washington, or what the algorithm pumps into our feeds. What’s missing is original reporting on where most of our tax dollars are spent, and where decisions that shape our daily lives are made: in school board meetings, in city halls, and in statehouses.

At its core, this is a market failure. The advertising model that supported local news for a century and a half has collapsed.

And the consequences are dire. Studies show that when communities lose their local news, civic engagement drops, corruption goes unchecked, government waste increases, and polarization widens. 

Digital life makes it easier to stay connected to far-off networks, and easier to lose touch with people nearby.

Today, researchers talk about the disappearance of the “Middle Ring” — the network of people who aren’t your family, and aren’t strangers, but are something vital in between: The neighbor you run into at the grocery store. The fellow parent you disagree with at a PTA meeting.

When those bonds weaken, it’s not just loneliness that grows. It’s trust that erodes. It’s community that frays — and with it, the foundations of a healthy democracy.

Local journalism plays an essential role in fortifying that Middle Ring.

That conviction is what brought me to the American Journalism Project — the first venture philanthropy dedicated to revitalizing local news.

~~~

Over the past six years, we’ve worked to meet the market failure head-on.

We’ve invested in 53 nonprofit local news organizations across 37 states — from Vermont Digger to Montana Free Press to El Paso Matters. We’ve helped them grow and diversify their revenue so they can add journalists and be sustainable over the long term, through local philanthropy, membership programs, corporate sponsorships, and events.

We’ve launched new outlets in places like Ohio and Indiana, and more are coming this fall in Los Angeles and Tulsa. 

Just recently, Mirror Indy — one of the newsrooms we’ve helped launch, and not yet two years old — saw the closure of a troubled mental health facility after its reporting revealed systemic abuse and neglect.

At Mississippi Today, a reporter named Anna Wolfe exposed how tens of millions of dollars meant for vulnerable families were misused, funneled into projects backed by the powerful —  work that won her the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting.

In September, when Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune jumped into action with breaking news reports. As executive editor Lauren Gustus put it: “As local journalists…It’s not our job to sweep a story into a national narrative, but to do the work of sensemaking for local residents.” That same day, the Tribune published a piece helping Utahns find mental health and community support.

And in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Watch has been reporting on terrible conditions and cost overruns in the state’s prison system. Not long ago, they received a handwritten letter from a man who had just been released after serving eight years. He wrote: “There is so little reporting on this horrible out-of-control system, and what you do is essential to shine a light on it.” And with that note, he included a $50 donation. It wasn’t a large amount, but it was proof that when people see the value of local journalism, they will support it.

All across the country, a new generation of local news outlets are changing the way we create, distribute, and sustain local journalism.

~~~

None of this would be possible without extraordinary partners along the way. Working with DRK has been a privilege. DRK has been honing the business of venture philanthropy for years, and they opened it up to us — so we could learn from the best and apply it to our field.

And no one understands the value of local news better than a mayor. That’s why it has meant so much to have Michelle De La Isla — the former mayor of Topeka, Kansas, and a former DRK managing director — on our board. Michelle knew firsthand just how important local journalism is to governing.

And she’s not alone. Across the country, mayors have been pleading for local news. The mayor of New Bedford, Massachusetts, once said in an interview about local news: “It used to be that I couldn’t sneeze without having to explain myself. Now, I have to beg people to show up at my press conferences.” He pleaded, “Please, ask me questions!”

~~~

As I close out my time with DRK, I’ve been reflecting on some of the lessons from these past several years of rapid growth.

One lesson is about being relentlessly committed to your core purpose, while being equally adaptive to changing conditions. In our case,  seven months after ChatGPT launched and the world woke up to the AI revolution, we launched a studio to help our portfolio experiment with smart use cases of AI.

Another lesson is about having a bias toward action. It can be tempting to sit back and admire the problem. But what’s gotten us here is doing, with a fast learning metabolism — launching, investing, growing, learning, evolving — and then doing it again. That’s how we’ve launched eight startups and doubled the size of many news organizations in our portfolio.

I’ve also learned that the most important decisions are who you bring in — and the culture you build around them. You have to hire with rigor, be explicit about the culture you want to create, and be intentional about reinforcing it consistently.

And finally, I’ve learned: set it, measure it, share it. Be clear about your goals, track your progress, and then share it back with the world. And then repeat. That’s how you earn trust. That’s how partners and donors choose to come alongside you and reinvest to help you scale.

~~~

This fall, Len Downie — the longtime executive editor of The Washington Post and now a professor at Arizona State University — published an important report called “Confronting the Future of Local News.”

It was a look at the innovation bubbling up across the country. He called this moment “a turning point for local news.”

And that’s exactly how I see it.

This is not the story of a dying industry. It is the story of a country choosing to rebuild its civic life — one newsroom, one community at a time.

That’s what I think it means to be a localist. Thank you so much.